62: Chapter 62 Only those who can keep their fists hidden are qualified to talk about a comeback.

Chen Fan's fingertips had just touched the bloodstains on Su Shuang's arm when she gently avoided him.

"It's just a superficial wound." She looked down at the bleeding injury, her fox tail phantom flickering behind her before vanishing. "But you—that punch just now, even I didn't notice the critical hit."

A few rays of twilight leaked through the ruined eaves of the broken temple, illuminating the copper coin on Chen Fan's gauntlet.

He squatted down and bit off a corner of the torn cloth with his teeth, his knuckles turning white from the exertion. "The ones that emit red light now are just for show... the ones I don't throw..." A sharp light flickered in his eyes as he looked up, "are the true killing moves."

Before he could finish, the faint sound of a dry branch snapping came from outside the temple.

Chen Fan's ears twitched slightly, and from the corner of his eye, he spotted a beggar dressed in hemp huddling in the snow.

The man was wrapped in a tattered jacket of an indistinguishable color, his hands tucked into his sleeves, yet he kept stealing glances at their waists—at Su Shuang's teacup pendant and the copper coin on his gauntlet, now stained a dark red with blood.

"Green Face," Su Shuang's voice suddenly dropped half a pitch. "A Scavenger specialized in recording. He should have Trace Ink hidden in his sleeve; once it catches the scent of an outlier, it can transmit coordinates."

Chen Fan's thumb gently rubbed the edge of the copper coin.

It had dropped when he landed a twenty-fold critical hit during his first mission in the Newbie Village. Monster blood from that time was still embedded in its patterns, now growing slightly warm with his movements.

He didn't move, only pulling Su Shuang's teacup closer to his side, allowing the beggar's gaze to roam over them.

Night fell extremely quickly.

Chen Fan deliberately practiced his fist techniques in the clearing before the temple, each punch suppressed to the power of a Silver Rank 3—the strength he had revealed in the Bronze Rank 10 dungeon three days ago.

The wind from his fists swept over the snow, only causing loose flakes to flutter down without even shattering a single icicle.

"With only this much ability, how do you expect to brave Qingqiu?" Su Shuang leaned against a crumbling wall with her arms crossed, her voice full of obvious disdain, yet her fingertips secretly hooked onto the knot of the copper coin at his waist. "The stove in my Teahouse has more strength than you."

The beggar in the snow shrank his neck, and a faint blue light suddenly flickered within his sleeve.

From the corner of his eye, Chen Fan saw two specks of recording light flash in the man's eyes—a sign that the Trace Ink had been activated.

A moment later, the beggar wrapped his tattered jacket tighter and shuffled toward the forest with a hunched back, his footprints dragging a winding line in the snow.

"The bait has been cast." Chen Fan watched the figure disappear into the shadows of the trees, his gauntlets creaking as he clenched his fists. "Now we'll see if what bites the hook is a fish... or a crocodile."

Su Shuang's fox tail phantom manifested in the night, its fluffy tip brushing against the back of his hand. "The rock cave under the bridge. Broken Brush must be getting impatient."

The dampness under the bridge, mixed with the scent of decaying leaves, wafted toward them.

Chen Fan took out a fire starter, its dim yellow light revealing a figure deep within the cave—a man paralyzed from the waist down, his left leg wrapped in coarse hemp, three deep scars running from his brow to his jaw on the right side of his face, and a faded black cloth covering his left eye.

Hearing the movement, he suddenly began to cough violently, causing the moss on the cave walls to shake loose and fall.

"You killed Seventh of Class C?" Broken Brush's voice sounded like sandpaper on stone, but when his lone eye swept over the copper coin on Chen Fan's gauntlet, he suddenly paused. "This pattern... it belongs to the critical hit system?"

Chen Fan squatted down and brought the copper coin close to his eyes. "He isn't dead yet." He thought of the young face beneath the Magistrate mask earlier that day, which overlapped with Xiao Lin, who was always bullied in the Newbie Village. "But he's starting to lose faith in your 'Order is Salvation' rhetoric."

Broken Brush's lone eye suddenly turned red.

He raised a trembling hand and scratched three deep grooves into the rock wall with his fingernails. "I was once Magistrate Ninth of Class B." Rock dust fell onto his hemp robe. "Back then, I also believed that as long as I followed the system's rules, I could keep my clansmen safe... until they made me personally eliminate my younger sister." His nails dug deep into the crevices of the stone. "She was only sixteen; she had simply picked up one too many pieces of green gear in the Newbie Village."

The scratches on the rock wall gradually became clear—the bottom layer was densely carved with the word 'Magistrate,' the middle layer featured a chain-like 'Life Recording Division,' and the top layer depicted an eye that blotted out the sun, with a note beside it: 'King of Scavengers.'

"The ones watching you now are the Life Recording Division." Broken Brush's lone eye turned toward Su Shuang. "If that little Magistrate reports 'target strength unknown,' they will send a 'Riot Suppressor'."

Su Shuang's fox ears twitched amidst her hair. "Seventh of Class C's gaze wavered when he retreated." Her fingertip lightly tapped her chest, where she still carried the fragment map stolen from the Black Banner Emissary. "If he reports the truth..."

"So we must let him 'see' with his own eyes how weak we are." Chen Fan suddenly pulled a blood pouch from his waist, which contained the ashes of the Blood Silk Vine collected during the day's battle.

He took some ashes, mixed them with mud, and smeared them over his knuckles. "This stuff can mask critical hit fluctuations. Then, by triggering the weakest critical hit..."

He swung his fist at a stone pillar beside the cave wall.

The wind of the punch brushed against the stone surface, leaving only a faint white mark.

But Su Shuang leaned over and touched the pillar, her fingertips coming away covered in stone powder—the interior had already turned to dust.

"We'll stage a 'narrow escape' defeat." Her fox eyes brightened as she looked up. "Make them think we only survived the Bronze dungeon through sheer luck."

The next morning, before the mist had dissipated, the sound of clashing metal echoed from the broken bridge.

Chen Fan ran into the woods with his shoulders hunched, followed by the curses of two new Magistrates.

He deliberately stumbled and snapped a dry branch, his fist striking a stone slab—only two pieces broke, and they were the thinnest ones at the edge.

"Chase them! Don't let them escape!" one of the Magistrates shouted, swinging his Law Saber. The tip of the blade grazed the back of Chen Fan's neck, slicing a hole in his collar.

Chen Fan gritted his teeth and lunged forward, catching a glimpse of Green Face hiding behind a tree, stuffing something into his sleeve—it was a scrap of cloth stained with his blood.

"Target's critical hit frequency has decreased; suspected injury," Green Face's report drifted over with the wind. "Recommend downgrading the monitoring level."

Deep in the dense forest, Chen Fan leaned against a tree, panting heavily.

Su Shuang emerged from a hollow tree, her fingertip touching the fake blood on his collar. "The Life Recording Division's monitoring markers should change now."

Chen Fan opened his hand; the copper coin in his palm was glowing with a dark red light.

Instead of surging, the light slowly compressed, like a clenched flame. "Only those who can hide their fists..." He gazed at the distant, snow-covered mountain peak, "...are qualified to flip the chessboard."

The snow mist at the mountain peak suddenly surged.

A figure in black robes stepped out of the mist, a long saber wrapped in faded red silk hanging at his waist.

He raised a hand to stroke the blade, and the 'Critical Inhibition' rune carved into the saber suddenly lit up, reflecting a cold light in his eyes.

"The snow of the Northern Wastelands..." Su Shuang looked toward the mountain peak, her fox tail phantom fluffing up behind her. "The wind is about to rise."

Chen Fan gripped the copper coin tightly, the red light condensing into a fine needle in his palm.

He looked at the words "frost moon" on Su Shuang's teacup and suddenly smiled. "When the wind comes..." His voice drifted into the distance, mingling with the sound of the wind, "we will be standing in the eye of the storm."